About The Game

Tom Clancy almost never fails to impress gamers with his games that filled with actions, governments, and politics. One of his game that depicts how government fails to secure its citizens and the island of Manhattan is The Division. It’s an amazing game released on 8th of March, 2016. The game is trusted to be developed by Ubisoft, the giant game corporation responsible for great titles such as Ghost Recon, Assassin’s Creed, The Crew, and much more.

The game was released for platforms like PlayStation, XBOX, and PC. The Division is a multiplayer RPG game where the players will play as a sleeper agent who got activated during a virus disaster that struck the city of New York. More detail will be shown here in this Tom Clancy’s The Division review.

The Story (Spoiler Alert)

There’s no other game that depicts the horror of virus outbreak better than The Division. The game showing the story of how a virus wreaks havoc in the Big Apple. The virus, however, it’s no natural one, but it’s an artificial virus made by a biologist named Gordon Amherst. He is the man who’s responsible for creating and spreading the virus through banknotes in Black Friday moment.

After the virus is gone viral and killing thousands of civilians, the military tries to quarantine the city but it was resulting nothing but more death across the city. Following the downfall of the military, the sleeper agents or the division agents are activated and have the mission to restore the city back to its former glory from what was used to be Manhattan, the city that never sleeps. The Agents face many challenges to save the city. They have to go through many different lunatic factions that want to claim Manhattan for their own.

The Factions

After the catastrophic event destroys New York, many groups of people try to dominate the island and try to claim what’s left of the city to stay alive. There are five different factions that try to take everything from the city and use the virus epidemic as their shields, and those are Rioters, Rikers, Cleaners, LMB, and the Rogue Agents.

The Rioters

They are gang hustler who just wants to stay survive but by taking what other’s have. They are to kill everyone who dares to resist them. This faction is quite troublesome in the game but pretty easy to take care of.

The Rikers

The Rikers are consist of convicts who got out of Riker Correctional Facility. They use the virus epidemic to their advantage and they have the mission to claim the city and punish everyone for have put them in the jail. The riders are the faction that you must not underestimate, they have enough firepower to make you in difficult situations.

The Cleaners

Cleaners are supposed to be the group that cleaning all the infected bodies and sanitize them. But they all go insane and their leader, Joe Ferro, decides to kill and burn anyone who still alive in the city. They burn everyone they met because they think that all people in the city beside them are infected and need to be eradicated to clear the virus spread.

The LMB

LMB stands for Last Man Battalion. The LMB is a private military contractor who is hired to guard the Wall Street financial block in the virus epidemic. But when the government is drawn back due to the increasing crisis, the LMB felt left behind and the leader Charles Bliss saw an opportunity to claim Manhattan for his own. So, with all the heavy weaponry LMB own, this faction is the real danger around the city.

The Rogue Agents

The real and most dangerous faction in The Division is actually the Rogue Agents. They are the former Agents of Homeland Security but gone rogue when the government drew back out of the city. The Rogue Agents are lead by a man named Aaron Keener, a smart and cunning soldier who betray the division and start to make benefits out of the crisis. This faction will be the most dangerous because the Rogues have the advanced technologies from the division and they use it in the harm’s way.

Visuals

For the graphics aspect, this game I can say pretty awesome. The game uses Snowdrop engine, which is created also by Ubisoft intended to use in many gaming platforms like Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. The fact is that Tom Clancy’s The Division is the first game to apply the Snowdrop engine.

From what you may have seen, the graphic engine really did a great job. The amazing detail of the agents and the immersive scale of buildings throughout the New York City. The game is set to happen around December so there’s snow all over the place, making it feels the more apocalyptic world.

But for some people, there’s a disappointment which comes from the visuals because what the game show at E3 is quite different with the released version. News said that the game went through a visual downgrade to keep up the performance. Well, for you who just admire the story and how the game plays, that would be enough to make your stay. But for the people who want greater visuals than anything else, this could be troublesome.

Gameplay

The Division is a multiplayer RPG shooter game. It portrayed third person view for the player. All the players or Agents, are given the chance to customize what they will look like at the begining of the game.

This game is to be said as an open world game and you have the option to wander alone or in group with friends/strangers you meet outside. There two main key areas within the game, the Normal Zone and the Dark Zone.

The Normal Zone

It’s where you will wandering around doing missions in the game. All the enemies in this zone could be said as easy to medium difficulty. This is the zone where you will spend most of your game time like entering missions and killing bosses.

The Dark Zone

Now this is the zone that new players must avoid because this is the most dangerous zone ever. Apart from the contaminated area, there will be rikers, cleaners, and LMB wandering around DZ. And what make it worse, rogue agents will scatter everywhere here ready to kill the unwary agents. Be always at full guard when you’re in DZ because you will never know where the enemy will attack and when another fellow agent will gone rogue. One thing about going rogue is that if you kill another agent that you will become a rogue, and you will become visible in the map for the rest of other agents nearby.

This is I think the most interested part of the game because it’s the ground zero of the crisis. This is where AI and another players from all around the world will meet and compete for survival. Like I said, always be on full guard.

The Gunfight

For newcomers, this game may shock you for the first time because it might take dozens of ammunition rounds to take down a single enemy. Yes, I know it is a nonsense. But, you must know that this game is RPG, that means you will have unlimited option to get the right gear so it can unload huge damage to the enemy. That is what makes this game unique. It’s unlike any other shooter game where you can take down enemy with one or two bullets. In The Division, you must scavenge for better weapons and suitable gears to have big damage hit to the enemies.

Scavenging Weapons

If you want to dominate the game, weapons are the best partner you will ever have. You will carry three weapons along side of you. Two main weapons and one side arm. Each weapons you have will have different characteristics that you can use as advantage while in combat. There will be a lot of guns in this game, and if you’re new to this game, pick them all up and sort it out the way you think it’s best suits you.

Scavenging Armors

Besides weapons, armors are also very much important for your agent. Good set of armors will defend you from all the blazing bullet head towards you. The armors are also different from each other. And you will have to scavenge lots of them to find the perfect ones that suits your defensive gameplay style.

The Good

Well, I think we arrived at the point where I show you what are the good and the bad things about this game. Well, friends, I must admit, this game is unique, something different, so some of you may find it difficult to enjoy. But, if you’re like me, a gamer who plays a lot of games to experience something new and challenging, this is the game for you. With pretty good graphics, good story, and unique gameplay, it’s a worth playing.

The Bad

I must be fair and square in this review, so there will be balance in the world. Apart from the greatness, this game still struggles with problems. The problems such as graphic glitch, bad networking, and impossible AI are here to make players itchy. But the developer promises that updates to make the game better will always roll for the future to make the players enjoy the game more than ever.

Overalls

If you’re fans of Tom Clancy’s games, then I must say that you really need to try this out. But it’s also great for people new to shooter game because it gives the newcomers chances to get better and better throughout the gameplay. With the current price of 50$(prediction), I think it will worth the money you spent.